Thank you. Thank you. to speaker today for our abbot, Hozan Allen.

[08:13]

And I wanna start by wishing him well and sending prayers for his, as much comfort and as much ease as possible, as soon as possible. I'm sorry that you're not here in the Rim of Esau Zen. So today is the sixth day of Rohatsu Sashin. It's an important and beautiful annual ceremony and it's happening at this time or roughly this time all over the world. Zen practitioners are sitting many hours of Zazen chanting and bowing, the activities of this gathering are connected in some way to the activities of other temples and other groups all over the country and all over the world.

[09:23]

That's very moving to me, the way we make one enormous body of practice. We know that's happening. that's happening. But I do want to say that sashimi can be a powerful, that sashimi is a powerful experience, but it can be hard. There are times that it's physically uncomfortable or painful. There's times that it's emotionally uncomfortable or painful. I was thinking the other day Some of the worst experiences of my life and some of the best experiences of my life have been in Sashim, sometimes the same Sashim, and sometimes within about 45 minutes of each other. A lot can happen in seven days. I wanted to encourage anyone who's having difficulty of some kind to acknowledge that and to reach out.

[10:28]

We don't have to. suffer physically or emotionally on our own. We've been helped a lot with difficulties in Sushin, and there's many, many practitioners here who could help if something is hard. So please ask. So right after this talk, we will have a ceremony. It's a ceremony of Buddha's enlightenment, and we will chant, and we will ambulate and flowers will rain down on us. And I wanted to talk a little bit today about how we might relate to that ceremony, to a ceremony of Buddha's enlightenment, but really more generally how we might relate to all the activities of Rohatsui Sushi, to Zazen and Kin Hin,

[11:29]

uriyoki in service to the ceremony of Buddhist enlightenment. How do I relate to these activities? What's the story I'm telling myself about what we're up to? Just actually, what are we up to? And I'll give away the point at the beginning. I think there's different ways to think about it. There's different good ways to think about what we're doing. And that the way we think about it impacts in some ways what it's like. So Rohatsu Sesshin, in general, maybe especially the ceremony we're about to do is in some kind of relationship to Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening under the Bodhi tree millennia ago.

[12:34]

So in a way, what is the relationship between what we're doing today, what we're doing together now, and the enlightenment of Shakyamuni? So I think one way we might think about this, and I think this is a common ancient view, and I think it's a common contemporary view. It's, what is it? It's orthodox, you know, it's doctrinally sound. You can think that the is that we are honoring or we're commemorating where we're celebrating this wonderful thing that this person did. So someone did something in their life, and I think it's great, and I wanna acknowledge it.

[13:42]

I think when a sports team wins a championship, they go back home, and there's a parade. It's like, yay! A couple of years ago, in the Men's World Cup, when Argentina won the World Cup, maybe some of you saw this footage, the parade in Buenos Aires was so big that they actually had to helicopter the players out. There was no way through, right? So, I think that the Buddhism enlightenment ceremony is a parade. you know, we'll be walking and throwing stuff. It's a parade we're throwing Shakyamuni Buddha because we're so impressed and so delighted that he freed himself from grief, pain, and delusion.

[14:46]

So I notice a few things about that understanding. One is that The awakening is located in another person's life. And then I relate to it from my life and maybe it serves as an inspiration or a model or a guide. You know, a lot of things in the world work exactly like this. So learn how to play the piano. You know, the ability to play the piano lives in your life. I might be inspired by that. I might decide that I could play the piano, and I might go study the piano. And I try to emulate the way that you're a piano player by the way that I'm a piano player. So I might be very grateful to you for having demonstrated for me that it's possible to do this amazing thing. called Learn How to Play the Piano.

[15:53]

Maybe I didn't know that before. You're the only piano player I've ever met. This is really... I guess I might think, especially if you're a really good piano player, maybe I'm not gonna be as good of a piano player as you, but I can still be delighted that in my way I'm messing around on the piano. Or I could have an understanding that I could be just as good a piano player as you. Again, so a lot of things, maybe actually most things in the world are like this. Somebody does something in their life and then we relate to it from our life. This is one view of what happened when Shakyamuni Buddha woke up. It's this wonderful thing that we can be inspired by or emulate in our way. This person did this special thing inspiring to me.

[17:01]

And in my own life, in my community, I'm going to try to do some version of that. So as I said, this is a view that you find in the ancient world. fairly common contemporary view. I think if you went over to the bookstore and looked in the Buddhist section, I think you'd find texts that understand the Buddha and the Buddha's life in this way. A model, something to emulate, something to imitate or learn from. And you know, occasionally in the Soto Zen school, you can find stuff where we talk about it in this way. You know, most often that's not the understanding that's expressed in our school. It seems that awakening is in some important way not like playing with piano.

[18:09]

It's different. It's in a different category, I could say. So the way we... of Shakyamuni's awakening. This is from the Denko Roku. This is Keizan Zenji, the Soto Zen school, two great founders, Dogen Zenji and Keizan Zenji. Keizan wrote a record of stories about the ancestors, and it starts with a story about Shakyamuni, and it's very short. Two sentences. Many of you know the story very, very well. Shakyamuni Buddha realized enlightenment on seeing the morning star. He said, I and all beings together attain enlightenment. I and all beings together attain enlightenment. I think this is actually really, really different than playing the piano.

[19:15]

It's not actually the case that if you learn how to play That would be a misunderstanding of how things work. It's just not true, right? Yeah, again, I can relate to it. I can be inspired by it, but it's not. It lives in your life. It doesn't live in my life. So the teaching of our school is that awakening must not be like playing the piano. It's something else. A little later in that same text, the Denko Loku, Kezon writes, when you lift up a net, all the holes are raised. When you lift up a net, all the holes of the net are raised too, right? In the same way, when Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened, so too were all beings on earth enlightened.

[20:18]

So by the nature... is, when you lift it up, the holes come with it. It's not possible to have a net that you can lift without lifting the holes just by the logic of what a net is. And so by the logic of what it is, it's not possible for it to live in one person's life. Because awakening is precisely freedom from the delusion of separateness. If you're a net, the whole's gotta come just by definition. By definition, freedom from separateness can't happen in a separate life. It's not coherent. So I want to notice, for myself, maybe for you, I want to notice that that understanding begins to shift a little bit what I think we're doing in something like the Buddha.

[21:42]

So when Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened, so too were all beings on earth enlightened. I start to feel like maybe I'm in a slightly different relationship to Buddha's enlightenment than when I was honoring it and inspired by it and maybe hoping to emulate. And it even raises this little question of, like maybe am I one of the beings that's included in Buddha's enlightenment? But I wanna say, I think that's not totally... We have to unpack that from a different angle because it is true that Buddha's awakening happened in the past. Buddha's awakening happened thousands of years ago. So we can clarify a little bit as possible.

[22:43]

When Buddha woke up, everyone woke up. But then that happened a long time ago. A bunch of time has happened since then. So maybe Buddha's awakening was sort of in the past. And again, a lot of things in life are like this. Things happen in the past. I become interested in them. I study them. I model myself after them. That happens all the time. And so the questioning is, is enlightenment, is Buddha's enlightenment like those things? Or is it different? Is it different in some ways? Again, there's an honorable Buddhist position that asserts that awakening does happen in time. Awakening happens in time. In a way, it's a really coherent Buddhist that makes a lot of sense because it's saying that Buddha's awakening, like everything is impermanent.

[23:46]

It happens and it goes away. It makes a lot of sense as a position. There's a lot of versions of it. One really kind of influential in the medieval world was this idea of the decline of the Dharma over time. Buddha is awakened and the teaching spreads and it's really wonderful for a while. It's really powerful. I thought of the teaching of the decline of the Dharma. It's kind of like a tea bag. water on it, you drink a cup of tea, you know. And then you add more water later, and it's like, it's not as powerful. It's lost some of its juice. Maybe you can drink that. And then you try again, and it's like, it's really just water, you know. So that's an understanding of what happens to Buddha's awakening. It's for a while. There's the true Dharma, and then some centuries go by, and the tea's getting a little weak, you know. And then it's the sort of imitation.

[24:49]

Dharma and the Spinal Dharma, they're losing power because awakening is in time. There's a slightly different version of this which has to do with the future Buddha, Maitreya, and on one traditional understanding, you know, the future Buddha can't come. There's only one Buddha basically. Only one Buddha can fit in a world And so, there's this great story that 5,000 years after Buddha's enlightenment, all of his relics, so, you know, there's like a finger bone somewhere, and like a fingernail, and a toe, and they all reassemble. They burst into flames, and then Maitreya can come. Maitreya can't come until Shaka Luni's gone. because awakening is in time.

[25:52]

So, again, that's a really wonderful Buddhist position, and many people have thought that. And even occasionally in Soda Zen, we might talk about it in that way, but it's not. Understanding of our school. I want to say a little bit about her. I'm going to read... This is a different translation of the Denko Roku. So the first one I read was... Shakyamuni Buddha saw the star and was enlightened, and he said, I, together with all beings, realize enlightenment.

[26:59]

It's a different version. When Shakyamuni Buddha saw, sees, and will see the morning star, he said, says, and will say, I was, am, and will be enlightened simultaneously with all beings. So this is from a wonderful translation of the Denko Roku by Jiyu Kenne. Kenne Roshi is this really, really interesting and powerful figure in American Zen. She's roughly a contemporary age of Maizumi Roshis. She's really important because she's the first Western woman who was granted authority. authorization by the Soto School in Japan. So, you know, just this history of the interplay between Japan and the West, right at the same time, Japanese men were coming this way.

[28:04]

So Suzuki Roshi lands in 1959. Peggy Kennett, this British woman, was going that way. And she gets to Japan in 1961, which is where Suzuki Roshi trained, where Maizumi Roshi trained, and did really rigorous slash brutal training in Japan, and then came to the United States and taught here for many years. Denko Roku, I think she wants to lift up this point, this understanding, this different understanding of awakening in time, which is that awakening isn't like other things that exist in time. That awakening is somehow freedom from the distinctions we make, like self and other,

[29:08]

or like present and past and future. That awakening overflows separation from each other and overflows separation from each other. It can't be bound by time because it can't be bound by the nature of being boundless. Dogen Zenji wrote, When all Buddhas of the past, present, and future arouse the thought of enlightenment, they never exclude our body and mind. The Buddhas of the past don't exclude my body and mind now. I was thinking of this Kenner Roshi. translation and I knew I wanted to mention it in this talk, and that was before I had seen the echo for the Buddhist enlightenment ceremony that we're about to do.

[30:19]

I won't give it away, but listen for was, am, and will be, because that is precisely the understanding of this temple, because that is what we are, Ryushin, will ascend in the dedication of merit after this ceremony. So I just want to feel how profoundly this changes my understanding of the ceremony. So I'm not exactly commemorating someone else's life for honoring it or remembering it. And I'm not exactly relating to something that happened at some other time. Somehow, mysteriously, it's our awakening. And it's our awakening now.

[31:23]

And for me at least, that profoundly changes what I think I'm doing. So now I'm not honoring, I'm not celebrating. You could say I'm participating in or I'm expressing or I'm enacting or I'm embodying. I'm playing in the field of. And in the same way that it changes what I think we're doing in Buddha's enlightenment ceremony, I think it changes what I think we're doing in all ourselves. Zazen is a ceremony of awakening. Eating oryoki is a ceremony of awakening.

[32:34]

It's an expression of our awakening now. Even the basic, sometimes they don't even think of them as practices, but they are the ordinary practices of Sangha life, of trying to understand each other, trying to be patient with each other, trying to speak kindly. The vital practice of trying to learn how to get along is actually a ceremony of awakening. expressing our vast freedom together. I should probably stop.

[33:43]

I want to go just, if I can, I want to say one more thing. I want to go just a tiny bit farther. So I'm talking about ways of understanding what we do. Understanding awakening as something, honor or something that we express. But I want to notice that what we think we're doing also isn't static. Our idea of what we do changes. The day of sesshin, you can really feel this. What I think oryoki means at breakfast isn't what I think oryoki means at lunch. My thinking about what we're doing doesn't stay still. So although it seems to me that what we think we're doing has a tremendous impact, and we want to notice and appreciate what we think we're doing,

[34:48]

I think it's also true that whatever we think we're doing, it doesn't exhaust the power of what we're actually doing. There's a way in which what we're actually doing can't be grasped by how we think about it or talk about it, no matter how beautifully or accurately we think about it or talk about it. doing in our practice is always more mysterious than anything we can know about what we're doing. Dogen Zenji wrote, the way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. So it's not, it doesn't matter, it matters a lot and it really changes what it's like to do things. But it's that we can have faith that what we're doing, what we're really doing, is always, always beyond any way of thinking about it that we might have.

[36:10]

And I think I should stop there and let other people talk a little bit. yeah gary hi thank you for your talk yeah if time is a straight line Is awakening a circle? Did everyone online hear the question? Yeah. I'm saying if time is a straight line, if time is a straight line, is awakening a circle around time?

[37:19]

I think it's actually even more. It's like if time can be thought of as a circle or a line, awakening is the paper that that's on. Like what's the field it's all happening in? Like Tuesday morning. Did anybody notice Tuesday morning how foggy it was? Yeah, Mary. That last quote of Dovan about knowing and thought knowing, our way being not knowing or knowing, would it be valid Did everyone hear that question?

[38:30]

Yeah, I think so. I think so. It's noticing and appreciating that sometimes we know in a different way and then sometimes we don't know. That's all happening and then our way is the big open space in which all of that is happening together. Thank you so much. Mark, we don't talk about Buddha watching over us like Jesus Christ watches over us. But in the Heart Sutra, we do tell a story about Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, who sees and meets herself. realizing freedom from you would suffer. So this is another way of telling the story of how his enlightenment, her enlightenment is not separate from ours.

[39:34]

That's beautiful, thank you. Hey Dave, Ross here. We offer a birthday party to our child or to a friend, a contemporary. We celebrate their life and the birth. So I can understand and feel celebrating their birth and this person in front of me and someday when they die, a memorial service. the continuous tie, past, present, and future, with Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. We're having a ceremony commemorating the enlightenment from millennia ago. Can you say a little bit about how I might be able to feel the intimacy of that now, as I go to the birthday party?

[40:44]

Yeah, I really appreciate that. I mean, even a birthday party, you know, in some ways it does. It overflows the past, right? Because we're not really celebrating the birth. We're celebrating the person. And I think I just, I remember reading this G.U. Kennett translation of the Dengaroku. I remember the first time I read it years ago. I mean, it really, it really impacted me. I'll read it again. When Shakyamuni Buddha saw, sees, and will see the morning star, says and will say, I was, am, and will be enlightened simultaneously with all beings. So it overflows the way I think about things, which is this happens, then this happens. It's something else. It makes perfect sense. We'll take a walk. Thank you, Ross.

[41:50]

Let's do one more and then one more. We'll do two more and then we'll stop. Yeah. Yeah, we'll do them both. Hi, thank you for your talk. I really love what you presented that we're enacting and participating Chuck and Denise Awakening. Yeah, that makes total sense to me. But I also, the first way you described it, I thought of things that way too. Just within my lifetime, Suzuki Roshi came here. I never met him, unfortunately. And I feel he had this wonderful teaching that inspired so many people. And then he passed that down to our teacher for, I don't know, eight years or something before he died.

[43:04]

I'm not sure the exact number. Suzuki Roshi had that training since he was like eight years old, I think. You know, so I do think that things have gotten weaker and weaker like the tea. And then our abbot passed it down to many people in our sangha, and I feel it's weaker. So I have to be honest. That's my experience. So I've been reaching out a little to Tibetan llamas who had 30 years of teaching. I do think things get weaker. So I'm sorry. And I know in our own experience, we can bring it to life, which is what you were saying. We can embody it ourselves. So that's the beautiful part. Thank you. I've always had trouble with this idea of the Buddha.

[44:28]

sort of simultaneously awakening with all beings. From my own comfort, I sort of put that aside as hyperbole, just 100,000 men and kaphas, like it goes in that same... And so I'm just wondering, I don't feel very... I don't feel like that sort of this reflection seems very dim to me. And I guess maybe I could say like, what's in it for me? What is this? What is this? That's such a good question. That's such a big question. I think part of it is I don't think awakening is a feeling. So it's possible to feel really clear and steady or it's possible to feel really foggy and shaky.

[45:30]

And I don't think awakening is something else. It's the reality in which I think that's what I maybe start to say. It's a great question. It's Dogen's question, actually. So it's an honorable problem in our school. We should go through a parade for ourselves in Shakyamuni Buddha. Thank you all so much. It's such a joy to get to practice together in this way. Delusions are inexhaustible. some final set up for the ceremony.

[49:04]

So we'll be doing indoor kingdom. But before we do that, we should stow all the Zabutons and Zafis and turn the chairs around and put the Zander back together.

[49:14]

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